Tree Hugging Now Scientifically Validated

“Research has shown that you don’t even have to touch a tree to get better, you just need to be within its vicinity [to have] a beneficial effect.” The gist of the article is that it’s “the vibrational properties of trees and plants that give us the health benefits and not the open green spaces.”

So here’s some harder data from Australian nursing and mental health researchers, for the green spaces argument, at least. Townsend and Weerasuriya write in Beyond Blue to Green: “accessible green spaces have been identified as part of the solution to this maladaptation [i.e. urban lifestyles] as they can promote holistic human health in modern urban environments” and “the aesthetics of natural and green landscapes is known to have a significant impact on the mental health of people.”

When it comes to why we find plants to be aesthetic objects in the first place, I am actually down with the whole vibe theory: body as aeolian harp and all that. There’s a ton of poetry to back it up. If anyone can point me to the science that does, I’d love to hear about it.